Successfully navigating through an IT crisis requires both successful problem solving AND successful communication.

When it comes to a crisis, it is absolutely imperative to communicate effectively. People tend to fill in the details of what they do not know with their imaginations. Most often, those ad-lib details are inaccurate. Without good communication, you could experience the best, most ingenious solutions in the world, and you would not be the wiser. Seeing the ashes of a house that once stood might make you condemn a fire department. But knowing that the firemen saved everyone single living being in that house might allow you to focus on and appreciate the heroism, rather than to kindle any condemnation.  The facts do not change, but your perspective does.  Good communication yields more accurate perspectives and that is exactly what you want during a crisis.

There are three types of contributors of change;  Instigators of Change, Implementers of Change, and Resistors of Change.   Each of these people are vital if any business is going to succeed.  Here’s why.

Instigators of Change are the people with uncontrollable passion.   They may often have ungrounded ideas, but their ideas might also be essential to the business’ success.  Many times, these are the people who are focused on the reward and oblivious of the risk.

Implementers of Change are the people with the technical skills needed to implement just about anything.   They often possess seemingly unbounded knowledge, and bring tremendously creative solutions to match equally difficult challenges.

Resistors of Change are the people who are usually the doubters.   They often fear change, and have a self-serving vested interest in averting it.  Many times, these are the people who are focused on the risk and unconvinced of the reward.

We need all three types of people to be successful.   The instigators are needed for their passion and for their ideas.   The implementers are needed for their innovative solutions.   The resistors are needed to keep the whole process grounded, to point out flaws, and to ensure that if the project does proceed, that every “i” is dotted and every “t” is crossed.   Each contributor is responsible for the success of the changes.

Just as the political system in the US has checks and balances, so do the contributors of change.  The implementers project a pragmatic perspective onto the instigator’s idealistic concepts.  The resistors harden the solution by weeding out potential failure points in the implementer’s solutions.   The instigators set the end-goal and many times, also the target deadline – ensuring an end in sight.  In the end, an innovative and successful change can take place.  Win-Win-Win.

Many of us have experienced stress at the job.   Perhaps we feel a muscle twitch, a migraine headache, or even our blood pressure might skyrocket.   Is there anything that we can do to be less stressed?   Let’s explore.

Empowerment is stress reducing.   Enabling others to make as many decisions as is prudent is one way of reducing their stress.  Having less on our plate reduces our stress.

The long way may take longer than taking shortcuts, but doing so will reduce stress later on.  When facing the choice, always try to avoid taking shortcuts.  Do things the right way the first time.

Be direct when communicating with others.  Avoiding confrontation is many times a precursor to passive aggressive behavior.  Whether you are the aggressor or the subject of the aggression, both parties will be subjected to stress.   It is always better for us to directly communicate with others, especially when our opinions differ.

Inform the uninformed.  Working for someone who shoots first and asks questions later can be very stressful.   Sometimes their decisions may be based on falsehoods rooted in ignorance.  Our job is not to be the victim.   Our job is to keep our bosses and peers informed.  Working for or with people who are informed will reduce conflict, which in turn will also reduce our stress.

Use your internal compass instead of an external one.  When we feel external pressure, we sometimes flip flop with our ideas.  We quickly, and many times incorrectly, doubt ourselves. We are often better experts in the subjects of our decisions than our critics are.   We need to believe in our decisions independently from criticism.   If we can be honest with ourselves and willing to swallow our pride if we make mistakes, then we can use our internal compass to tell us if we are headed in the right direction or not.  Having more confidence in our decisions will help us to be less defensive and that alone will help reduce stress.

A simple-minded approach toward solving problems deals in black and white.  Just as a physics puzzle without friction or resistance is easy to solve, so too are these black and white simple-minded puzzles.  But the world is complex.  There is friction, and there is resistance.  When lightning is about to strike, it does not abort because there is no superconductive object below.  No sir.  Rather, it selects the object with the least resistance to the ground.   Lightning does not require that ideal conditions are satisfied.   It only requires that the bare minimum conditions are satisfied.  Too often, I see people make the mistake of focusing so much on ‘ideal’ conditions that they fail to succeed in their goals.  When the path with no resistance is unavailable, the path with the least resistance might just be the best one to take.

Is it better to be busy or bored?  

That’s the question that many of us already have an answer to but never really stop to give it much thought.  When we are busy, time flies.  Those are the days where there just is not enough time to get everything done that we wish to do.   At the end of the day, we usually feel accomplished, but exhausted.  When we are bored, those are the days that drag.  We watch the clock and think, “For goodness sake, let this day be over already!”   At the end of the day, we usually feel exhausted, and unaccomplished.  Most of us seek that feeling of accomplishment, and for those of us – it is far better to be busy.   However, being too busy can sometimes stunt a career.  Let’s consider the self-motivated email administrator.  Every day she comes to work and is inundated with account updates and email related tasks.  The day completes before her work is finished, leaving no time for her to gain experience in other areas of administration, such as VPN or general server administration.   With this in mind, which is the better alternative?  To be busy, or to be bored?   My take on this question is that for every gallon of business, we need a couple of ounces of boredom.  Those ounces of boredom are learning opportunities that , if capitalized on, will help us to graduate to new areas of expertise, keep our skills sharp, and will eventually allow us to grow our careers.

To summarize:   Stay busy, but not exceedingly so.

Perception is simply an interpretation of facts.  Knowing only a subset of facts might yield a different perception than knowing the full set of facts.  When managing a team, it is important to ask enough questions to gather a complete set of facts/details.  A manager who is overworked might try to cut corners by not asking questions and making gut decisions based on incomplete information.  Most often, these are bad decisions.  Making bad decisions not only demoralizes the team, but it also hurts the organization that you work for.   Always ask questions.  Always collect all of the facts.  Then make decisions.  Never make decisions without all of the facts.

Have I used the word “facts” enough?   I think you get my point.

The Ladder Story

This is a story about a kid who was afraid of heights.   Somehow, he found himself in a job that required him to paint rooftops, go figure.   The first couple rooftops were fairly low to the ground, and were not a big issue.  But then there was one that was about 25 feet high.  He needed to first climb onto a smaller roof, and then up a shaky aluminum ladder to get to the top roof.

The first one was easy, he had climbed that high many times before and knew he could do it.   But the 2nd one proved to be much more difficult for him.   He started to climb the ladder and got about half way up and looked down.  He could see the small cars below, could feel the nimble ladder beneath him, and could see the tiny movements that the ladder took with each step.  It was enough to send him back down the ladder.

Everyone else that he was working with had already made it to the top of the ladder and were on the top of the roof.  All of them were now looking down at this kid.  Some were taunting him.  Some were encouraging him.  But all of them were staring at him.   He started up the ladder again and like the first time, got a few steps up and turned back.   He was convinced at this point that he was not going to work on the roof that day.  Everyone else was too.  They turned their attention to the roof itself and they started working.

Something crazy happened at this point.  The kid suddenly realized that it was acceptable to fail.  All of the expectations that the others had of him had vanished.  Without them, a weight was lifted from his shoulders.  He thought to himself, “I am going to do this”, and he started to climb the ladder again.  This time, he kept climbing as nobody watched.  Before he knew it, he was at the top.  As he stepped onto the roof, everyone turned with a surprised look on their faces that he was there.

This “kid” was me.  And I did what I thought was impossible that day.  I learned a very valuable lesson, too.  Overcoming personal challenges in the face of external criticism and/or expectations is extremely difficult.   I was a better worker when all expectations of me were removed.  As a manger, I am cognizant of this experience while planning tasks.  At the highest level, I do hold expectations for my team.  However, at the lowest level, the individual team members are entrusted with assuring the success of their own contributions.

Micro-managers

When managers micromanage, they take the ownership of smaller decisions away from the people who are implementing them.  The manager then becomes the guy at the top of the ladder taunting the workers below as they climb it.  It creates an atmosphere that is ripe for failure.

All too often, a manager is so concerned with his/her own success, that in order to assure their own success they believe that they need to control every detail of what their team works on.  What they often fail to recognize is that in doing so, they not only hurt the productive capacity of their team (because they become a bottleneck for decisions), but the manager also ensures a high stress environment that is prone to failure.

Lessons Learned

An employee who is able to make their own choices will have a higher commitment to his/her own success.   Failure follows stress.  Stress follows a lack of empowerment.  A lack of empowerment follows a controlling boss.  A controlling boss follows an insecure boss, afraid of his own failure.

Conclusion:  An insecure boss is a bad boss.